Comments on some developments in North European prehistory

The burials of the Nubian A‐Group recorded between the First and the Second Cataracts of the Nile and dated ca. 3200–2900 BC have yielded an important source material of rich and varied funerary offerings. This paper presents a case study aiming to establish a qualitative and quantitative ranking of the burials and to investigate relationships and patterns as regards age, gender and social organization, and also to study chronological implications. The results show that the A‐Group culture displayed a rather elaborate and mature social structure, perhaps organized around a female core with strong matrilineal traditions, and where the men occupied a different social sphere with their own symbolic expressions. One finds a shift from an earlier, uniformly stratified society towards a more complex structure with clear social inequality developed in Lower Nubia simultaneously‐with the emergence of the Firs t Dynasty in Egypt ca. 3000 BC.     

Bridging prehistory and history in the archaeology of cities

Abstract

Archaeology is ideally suited for examining the deep roots of urbanism, its materialization and physicality, and the commonalities and variability in urban experiences cross-culturally and temporally. We propose that the significant advances archaeologists have made in situating the discipline within broader urban studies could be furthered through increased dialog between scholars working on urbanism during prehistoric and historical periods, as a means of bridging concerns in the study of the past and present. We review some major themes in urban studies by presenting archaeological cases from two areas of the Americas: central Mexico and Atlantic North America. Our cases span premodern and early modern periods, and three of the four covered in greatest depth live on as cities of today. Comparison of the cases highlights the complementarity of their primary datasets: the long developmental trajectories and relatively intact urban plans offered by many prehistoric cities, and the rich documentary sources offered by historic cities.     

Scandinavians swearing oaths in tenth-century Russia: Pagans and Christians

The Old Russian Primary Chronicle reports on four tenth-century treaties concluded on oath between unchristianised merchants coming from Scandinavia and the Greek emperor, describing the oaths and ceremonies, the objects used, and the gods invoked. This article presents an investigation into the oaths and the formalities performed on those occasions. The opportunity is given for a comparison with fragmentary data elsewhere in the Scandinavian area of the time, and for a clarification of the portrayal of the oath in its pre-Christian form. As the agreements were concluded on the eve of Russian’s official Christianisation, interesting encounters between pagans and Christians are signalised.     

江苏高邮龙虬庄史前墓葬人口状况分析

本文利用江苏高邮龙虬庄史前墓地发掘材料探讨了龙虬庄史前人口的性别比例、平均年龄和死亡高峰、人口规模等问题。笔者认为史前龙虬庄人们可能有意控制了女性人口的数量。艰苦的生活、繁重的劳动、危险的生育过程都是导致人们过早死亡的原因。最后笔者通过静止人口模式和新石器人口增长模式两种方法探讨了龙虬庄当时大致的人口规模以及可能的增长过程。     

Comments on Bertil Hallert,photogrammetry and culture history. Discussion continued from NAR vol. 4, page 28

In archaeology experiment can be used both as a topic and as a research tool. In the former case, through identification of past experimental activities, we can obtain one of the indices of the social and cultural level. In the latter, experiment may help us in verifications of our hypotheses or in searching for facts that are so far unknown. This may take place in all spheres of archaeological procedure, thus not only in physical modelling of ancient technologies of production and in simulation of various economic and social processes—i.e. in the sense in which the contemporary concept of ‘experimental archaeology’ is usually delimited.     

Training,education, management and prehistory in the Mediterranean: Work in progress on a European Union research project

Abstract

This paper presents the work in progress of TEMPER (Training, Education, Management and Prehistory in the Mediterranean), a research project conducted by a consortium of seven partner institutions in the UK, Greece, Malta, Israel, and Turkey. TEMPER is funded by the European Union, as part of their Euromed Heritage II programme [1] and is the only project funded by the programme focusing on our prehistoric cultural heritage. The aim of TEMPER is to make the prehistory of the Mediterranean more accessible. This will be achieved through the development of educational programmes at pilot sites around the Mediterranean, the development of management plans for pilot sites, the delivery of a related training programme and dissemination of the project results. The project runs from January 2002 to June 2004.     

Geography and prehistory,a survey of the literature with a select bibliography

This brief review explores the relationship between geography and prehistory. Various major themes have characterized this relationship: the study of distributions and locations; the exploration of environmental influences and ecosystems; the reconstruction of past environments; the establishment of the rôle of man as an agent of ecological change; and the discernment of the development of the landscape. The links between these two disciplines, which have been provided by these common research themes, have recently been strengthened by the adoption of a new methodology.     

The Mythology of the Kalevala,with Notes on Bear-Worship Among the Finns.

MAKING A CURE. By PATRICK LOGAN. The Talbot Press. £2.50. Pp. 178. Illustrations. Reviewed by Eric Trimmer.

FOLKLORE AND DIALECT OF THE LOWER WYE VALLEY. By IVOR WATERS. The Chepstow Society, Chepstow, 1973. Pp. 39. 50p. Reviewed by Jacqueline Simpson.

NEW ZEALAND FOLKSONGS. Neil Colquhoun (Ed.) Bailey Brothers and Swinten. £1.35. Paperbound. Reviewed by Robin Maconie.

VOLKSKUNDE VON NIEDERÖSTERREICH. By LEOPOLD SCHMIDT. Vol. ii. Horn (Verlag Ferdinand Berger) 1972. Pp. 726,68 plates, 4 maps. Reviewed by Ellen Ettlinger.     

Urban political ecology in late prehistory: New evidence from El Purgatorio,Peru

One of archaeology's greatest strengths is its reliance on interdisciplinary collaboration and the utilization of multiple lines of evidence to inform archaeological interpretation. For example, through an examination of faunal and floral remains, production and storage facilities, and the isotopic analysis of human skeletal remains one can develop a model for urban political ecology in ancient cultures. In this case study, the political ecology of the Casma capital city, El Purgatorio, Peru, is investigated in order to inform our interpretations and conclusions regarding Casma political, economic and social organization. The results indicate that Casma political ecology was firmly based in coastal resources and oriented towards supporting state-sponsored feasting and ritual activities, suggestive of a largely elite-controlled redistributive economy. In contrast to previous models characterizing this time period as one of factionalism and environmental stress, the data suggest that coastal cultural adaptations produced an era of widespread political and economic stability.     

Biblical anthropology and the idea of human prehistory in late antiquity

Late Antiquity is an important period in the history of anthropology because it marks a divide between the naturalistic and rationalistic anthropological ideas of Greco-Roman philosophers and the "biblical anthropology" that was formulated by Medieval Christian writers. The biblical anthropology that emerged in Late Antiquity addressed the question of the origin of the first humans, our relationship to the natural world, and the original state of mankind. While early Christian philosophers based much of this biblical anthropology on the Genesis account of early human history, they also utilized a great deal of Greco-Roman philosophy in order to expound a vision of human prehistory that profoundly influenced anthropological thought well into the modern era.     

Hunter-gatherer cultural dynamics: Long- and short-term trends in Australian prehistory

Recent evidence indicates that a wide range of environmental sectors of Greater Australia had been peopled between ca. 30,000 and ca. 40,000 B.P. Differences in regional Pleistocene patterns of settlement, subsistence, and demography are becoming increasingly evident—such as those between central arid Australia and sub-Antarctic Tasmania. It now remains to model and explain the extremely long-term Pleistocene cultural sequences (spanning tens of thousands of years), in contrast to the more short-term cultural sequences that characterize, for example, the mid-late Holocene period of mainland Australia. While explanations remain unresolved, the latter period indicates the widest range of regional sociocultural and demographic changes.     

Causal pathways and causal processes: Studying the evolutionary prehistory of human diversity in language,customs, and biology

An issue of continuing interest to Pacific archaeologists—the “question of Polynesian origins”—is examined (1) to illustrate a set of basic concepts (pattern, pathway, and process) helpful when talking about the origins, maintenance, and stability of similarities and differences among human populations, and (2) to document, by case example, how one particular temporal pathway of development leading to one historically specific pattern of human variability may tell us something in general, as well as something in particular, about the evolutionary processes leading to human diversity in language, customs, and biology. Contrary to the conventional assumption that the first Polynesians migrated from a homeland located somewhere in Southeast Asia, a simple biological model based on perhaps no more than three types or kinds of event sequences—i.e., causal processes—suggests how modern Polynesian speakers may be derived from an ancestral population(s) once resident in the region of the Pacific we now speak of as Melanesia.     

The Woodland and Mississippian traditions in the prehistory of Midwestern North America

Cultural developments in Midwestern North America between 5000 and 400 B.P. are reviewed and related to two overlapping, but contrasting, cultural traditions: Woodland and Mississippian. Significant changes in prehistoric subsistence systems, settlement patterns, and sociopolitical organization are reviewed within a three-division framework, beginning with a Transitional period (5000–2000 B.P.) when Late Archaic and Early Woodland societies settled into different regions, constructed regional markers (cemeteries, mounds, earthworks), and established economic and social relations with both neighboring and more distant groups. This was followed by the Middle Woodland period (2000–1500 B.P.) that is associated with the Hopewell climax of long-distance exchange of exotic materials, mound building, and ceremonial activities, although all Middle Woodland groups did not participate in this Hopewell interaction sphere. In the Late Prehistoric period (1500–400 B.P.), the Woodland tradition persisted in some areas, while the Mississippian tradition developed from local Late Woodland societies elsewhere. Finally, the patterns of interaction between the two traditions are discussed.